Best Mod Vote idea.

[Morkilus]

My favorite nation mods so far are Ulm Reborn, Skaven, and that weird Insectoid mod. The Mushroom Kingdom is awesome it its very unique way. There are many more I'd like to try.

I'd say for popularity and MP use, the Conceptual Balance and Worthy Heroes mods are top priority. Get them, and come blitz on the IRC channel!

[HoneyBadger]

I'm kind of against this, because you've got so many people putting so much hard work into mods for so many different reasons that to say "A mod is better than B mod", it's just relative, and it really doesn't do anything except make the mods that *are* played even more exclusive and rare.

It's much better to promote all the mods, as a community, and simply promote the ones you like better, individually, rather than make this into a popularity contest which has no real basis in anything, or point.

[Sombre]

It has a basis in popularity which may or may not suggest a basis in quality. To paraphrase another - If quality is entirely subjective and relative then criticism and opinion is not 'nothing' it is 'everything'.

As for the point,... It does seem that people are put off by the volume of mods and not knowing where to start. But who is willing to tell them where to start? Which mods are best?

So I guess the idea of this thread is that there's going to be some kind of community consensus. But I know I haven't played all the mods here,.. not even close,.. so it's very difficult for me to say. A better question than 'which mod is best' might be 'which mod is most popular?'

In which case I'd still go for Conceptual Balance Mod :]

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not against information on which mods are the most generally important, useful, etc. for the benefit of new people. That goes without saying.

[Juzza]

Sombre said:
But I know I haven't played all the mods here,.. not even close,.. so it's very difficult for me to say. A better question than 'which mod is best' might be 'which mod is most popular?'

In which case I'd still go for Conceptual Balance Mod :]

You haven't played a lot of the mods here? you made the mod list!!

I've played just about every mod at least once, and I am sorta against rating mods, cause come on, who looks at a list of mods that are rate from lets say 1-30 and goes, hey I'm gonna try all 1-30 no, they'll try 1-10 or so and thats 20 peoples hard work ignored.

What we should do! is make one huge zip with every mod, update it monthly or bimonthly and include a stick thread with a link to this, a name for this thread that attracts new people and short descriptions of each mod on the thread and in a note pad document inside the big zip.

[Sombre]

Hey I spend more time modding than playing, what do you expect? The mod list was just an attempt to get the forum a bit more ordered. I'm glad I went ahead and did it, because someone sort of had to, but I've stripped back the detail since I first started it and now it's basically just a list of links to original mod threads. Pretty objective.

I think it's fair to say that some mods are better than others. Whether the author put in more time, or the concept was better to begin with, or it had the benefit of someone's artisitic ability or extensive MP balance experience,.. who is to say? But there is clearly a difference in quality between say, the dom2 mods and the dom3 ones. If you had a list of mods 1-30 and people with no idea of what to expect played the top 5 instead of 5 random mods, I think they'd get a better impression of dom3 mods overall, which would be good. They'd probably also have more fun. So there is an argument that it would be helpful.

I don't think a ranking system like that would work though, even if it were wanted/needed.

[llamabeast]

Maybe it could be useful to group them into balanced/unbalanced and approximately complete/definitely incomplete. And maybe also some category indicating whether the author focussed on detailed graphics, since clearly some mods such as Sombre's are of roughly Kristoffer quality, whereas others the mod author just created things pretty much as placeholders so they could enjoy working on the unit stats and descriptions.

Hmm, just thinking aloud here. It certainly is a tricky one to keep objective, but I do think it might be nice to have a few "look at these first" mods that people new to Dom3 mods should look at.

Hmm, maybe we could have a little vote on this thread on mods which would be good as "introductory mods", which we'd advise people to look at first. That is less controversial perhaps - it's not saying other mods aren't worthwhile, just that they're perhaps a little more unusual. Could split the introductory ones into balanced and unbalanced, since I know many people find e.g. Amos' mods interesting, but to me the unbalanced nature of them is a complete turnoff.

So, my vote for introductory mods:

-- Balanced --
Ulm Reborn
Arga Dis
Skaven
Vaettiheim

-- Unbalanced --
(don't know)

Sombre, seems like you come out well in my voting!

[llamabeast]

Come to think of it, maybe I should add a couple of Zepath's to my list. So, also:

Teutanion
Sylvania

Although I'm not convinced they're so well balanced. But at least they were intended to be, and they're not crazy.

[Juzza]

I do agree with you Sombre that there is a clear line for what's good and what's not, but if to make a list, we have to make sure not to forget anyone's mod, once somethings been submitted no matter how bad we have to subject them to the same rights as the good ones.

Oh I agree that those two mods you mentioned llamabeast, they are well ballanced.

[coobe]

CB mod. Makes Multiplayerr much more enjoyable